The use of oncological drugs for the treatment of cancer is known. Notable among the various types of oncological drugs are antineoplastic drugs.
Within the group of antineoplastic drugs, cytostatic drugs stand out. Cytostatics are cytotoxic substances designed for and used in, preferably, chemotherapy. To improve the therapeutic effect thereof and reduce the side effects caused in the patient, at present this type of medicine is prepared individually and tailored to each patient, which leads to in situ handling, in hospitals, for example, of this type of drug.
Owing to the action mechanism thereof at cellular level, cytostatics may have mutagenic, carcinogenic or teratogenic effects, and therefore the handling of this type of product is governed by numerous regulations to minimise the exposure of medical and/or pharmaceutical staff to this type of product. Accordingly, at present preparation of medicine to be administered to the patient is usually carried out in semi-automated or fully automated stations.
The medicine to be administered to the patient is usually packaged in syringes. To ensure the traceability of said syringes in order to ensure that the correct medicine is administered to the patient and in the correct dose, it is important to correctly label the syringe which contains the drug to be administered.
Various types of syringe labellers are known in the prior art.
Patent document PCT WO 2010/105334 A1 discloses an automatic system for preparing medicines in bags, which act as a source for preparing doses of highly diluted medicine in syringes. As well as means for preparing and measuring the doses of the medicines to be administered to patients, said device also comprises robotic means for handling syringes and a label printing and application station responsible for printing labels and applying said labels to the syringes. Said labels may contain a bar code or any other computer-readable code, which in turn contains information about the patient, the type of drug in the syringe, etc.
Said label printing and application station comprises a printing system and a printing platen. After positioning and fixing the label on the platen, the robotic syringe handling means arrange a syringe on the platen in such a way that the axis of the syringe is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the label and in the midpoint thereof. The syringe rests, in a first contact, on the surface of the label in order to affix said label to the syringe. Said first contact occurs in a deflection zone of the platen which can be driven down by pressure. Thus, the robotic syringe handling means push the syringe downwards in said deflection zone of the platen, allowing the label to adhere around said syringe.
The automatic medicine preparation system disclosed in document WO 2010/15334 A1 has the drawback, among others, that the medicine handling and preparation station is combined with the syringe labelling station in the same device. Owing to the exacting sterility requirements for the preparation of medicines, the presence of the labelling system could be a source of contamination of said medicine.
US patent document US 2008/0195077 A1 discloses a syringe labelling system which comprises a rotating plate which in turn comprises a plurality of external cavities, uniformly distributed about the axis of said rotating plate, each cavity being designed to transport a syringe on a circular trajectory. Said circular trajectory extends between a loading station, in which the syringes are inserted in the respective cavities, and an unloading station, in which each syringe, after being checked, is removed from the relevant cavity and directed to a rejection or acceptance path.
Situated between the loading and unloading stations is a marking station, in which each syringe receives a label, said marking station comprises a device for unwinding a continuous strip which holds the labels, a device for recovering the strip once said strip has passed through the marking station with no labels thereon, and a plate, around which the strip is wound, said plate being bent into an L shape, so that the labels can be unstuck one after the other.
The marking station comprised in the syringe labelling system disclosed by document US 2008/0195077 A1 comprises the supply of a rolling channel designed to wrap the body of each syringe in the corresponding label, causing the syringe to rotate on its own longitudinal axis after a longitudinal axis of the label has been placed in contact with the body of the syringe by a line which converges in the marking station and which is designed to provide an ordered succession of labels.
One of the drawbacks of the labelling system disclosed by document US 2008/0195077 A1 is that said system does not have means to prevent the marker scale of the syringe from being covered by the label. Accordingly, the labels used in said labelling system have a transparent border to allow the marker scale of the syringe to be seen, and although this may be a valid solution in some cases, it is not an optimal solution.